Your Right to Know

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama yesterday nominated Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry,
considered by some as one of Washington’s most-respected voices on foreign policy, as his next
secretary of state.

As the nation’s top diplomat, Kerry would not only be tasked with executing the president’s
foreign-policy objectives but also would help shape them.The longtime lawmaker has been in lockstep
with Obama on issues such as nuclear nonproliferation but ahead of the White House in advocating
aggressive policies in Libya, Egypt and elsewhere that the president later embraced.

“He is not going to need a lot of on-the-job training,” Obama said, standing alongside Kerry in
a Roosevelt Room ceremony. “Few individuals know as many presidents and prime ministers or grasp
our foreign policies as firmly as John Kerry.”

He is expected to win confirmation easily in the Senate, where he has served since 1985, the
last six years as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee.

Kerry would take the helm at the State Department from Secretary Hillary Clinton, who has long
planned to leave the administration early next year.

In a statement, Clinton said, “John Kerry has been tested — in war, in government and in
diplomacy. Time and again, he has proven his mettle.”

Obama settled on Kerry for the job even though it could cause a problem for Massachusetts
Democrats. Kerry’s move would open the Senate seat he has held for five terms, giving Republicans
an opportunity to take advantage. Recently defeated GOP Sen. Scott Brown would be his party’s
favorite in a special election.

Kerry, a former Democratic presidential nominee, would join a national-security team in flux,
with Obama expected to choose a new defense secretary and director of the Central Intelligence
Agency in the coming weeks.

The president has called upon Kerry, 69, to help defuse diplomatic disputes in Afghanistan and
Pakistan, two countries that will be at the forefront of Obama’s foreign-policy agenda.

At times, Kerry has been more forward-leaning than Obama on foreign-policy issues. He was an
early advocate of an international “no-fly zone” over Libya in 2011 and among the first U.S.
lawmakers to call for Egyptian strongman Hosni Mubarak to leave power. Obama later backed both
positions.

Kerry would take over at a State Department grappling with the deaths of the U.S. ambassador to
Libya and three other Americans during a September attack on the consulate in Benghazi.Kerry,
during a hearing on the attacks on Thursday, hinted at how he would manage U.S. diplomatic
personnel working in unstable regions.

“There will always be a tension between the diplomatic imperative to get ‘outside the wire’ and
the security standards that require our diplomats to work behind high walls,” he said. “Our
challenge is to strike a balance between the necessity of the mission, available resources and
tolerance for risk.”

The president is also mulling replacements for retiring Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and
former CIA director David Petraeus, who resigned last month after admitting to an affair with his
biographer.

Former Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska is a front-runner for the Pentagon post but has
been dogged by questions about his support for Israel and where he stands on gay rights.

Former Pentagon official Michele Flournoy and current Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter
also are under consideration to replace Panetta.Obama is considering promoting acting CIA Director
Michael Morell or naming White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan as the nation’s spy
chief.